Moving to a Plant based Diet

You have probably heard a great deal about the health benefits of eating a plant based diet. I'll be addressing some common questions and providing some tips on how to transition to a more plant based diet in this and forthcoming blogposts.

The Mediterranean diet has been mentioned repeatedly as being a healthy plant based diet. Great you say but we are living in the US and as Americans we don't generally shop every day and many of us do not have gardens we can pick from year round.

So what does a healthy plant-based diet look like?

A healthy plant based diet needs to include the following:

• Lots of fresh vegetables and fruits every day
  
• Low in refined and processed foods and sugar - switch to low glycemic sweeteners such as Agave or Stevia
  
• Minimal dairy products
• More fish and less red meat - try and eat grass fed when you do eat red meat, and organic or Amish poultry
  
• No hydrogenated fats, trans-fats (found in many pastries and margarine) - opt for olive, flax seed oil, grape seed oil instead
• Low in both saturated animal fats and vegetable oils such as safflower, corn sunflower and cottonseed oils.
• More filtered water and less bottled juices and more fresh raw vegetable juices, more baked potatoes and not French fries, more whole grains and less products made from refined flour
• More alkaline foods such as lemons and limes
• More brown rice and less white rice
  
• Incorporate seasonally, organic and locally grown produce as much as possible - good for reducing your Co2 footprint too!
  
• Eliminate eating foods with msg, artificial preservatives, colors and other chemical additives - read the labels!
  
• Breast milk for infants vs. infant formulas, but adults should aim to stick to probiotics for your dairy (such as kefir and yogurt) and try to eliminate cows milk.
  

And for vegans (those who eat no products from animals at all) it is important to include foods with B-12 or supplement the diet. Brewers yeast is a great source of the B 12 as are sea vegetables such as kelp, dulse, kombu and nori and herbs alfalfa (delicious sprouted!). Another important nutrient difficult for vegans to get adequate amounts of is Omega 3 fatty acids. These are found in flax seeds and oil, and fatty fish such as salmon, herring, mackerel and sardines. It is also found in walnuts, hemp seeds, green leafy vegetables and canola oil in lesser amounts.

Another misconception is about calcium. Most people do believe that the best source of calcium is dairy products. Most do not realize that many green vegetables such as spinach, broccoli and other leafy greens contain calcium. In fact eating two half cup servings of these vegetables provides as much bio-available calcium as one cup of cow’s milk.

Importantly please note that the daily requirement set by the US government for calcium is in fact not being met by 90% of Americans, in large part because it is probably too high.Two other nutrients needed in order to aid absorption of calcium are vitamin D and vitamin K, so be sure to get these into your diet (or supplement) as well

It is also worth mentioning that in 2001 the American Journal of Nutrition published a study that reported a dramatic correlation between the ratio of animal protein in the diets of elderly women and their rate of bone loss. The eleven year study reveled that women who ate more animal protein than vegetable protein were three times more likely to lose bone mass and had four times as many hip fractures as those who ate in reverse proportions.

More on the how to begin making this healthy transition in my next post!